


Masks

by Teacandles



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Broken Promises, Dark Charles, Gen, Mind Control, Nostalgia, Possession, Post-Cuba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teacandles/pseuds/Teacandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're very lucky I'm not the sort of hero who feels the need to wear a mask. If I did, I'm sure one of my masks would be you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Masks

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Маски](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5764591) by [JulinaPallod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulinaPallod/pseuds/JulinaPallod)



> Written for [this prompt](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/9701.html?thread=22114789) on the kink meme.

It feels like a lifetime since she’s walked these halls, felt the now-worn carpet under her bare feet. Things were certainly different now—the scorch marks on the walls, the looming paintings that had once frightened her as a child now swapped for smiling faces she barely recognized as they wore no masks, the solitary vase where there had once been many (she suspects the children had something to do with that as well)—it was almost like coming home. Except this home was not her anymore. Mystique (no, Raven here, in this place) swallowed and ran her fingertips along a bare stretch of wall, just letting feel of the cool paint seep into her bones.

So many unhappy memories, all washed away and replaced with new, warm bodies and a fresh coat of paint. Very clever for a man who had only wanted to use this place as a temporary hideout. Then again, he probably had counted on being able to walk for the rest of his life. Things never turn out the way they're planned, it seemed.

She ignored the elevator and made her way toward the stairs, wondering if Charles had bothered to keep his old room on the second floor. He’d always liked that one, he used to tell her. It caught the most sun, something Charles had always loved. Being outside during the long summer months when Charles wasn’t away at that awful school, running through the gardens like fools when the blackberries were ripe enough to eat right from the bush, hiding from cook in the trees when they didn’t want to come in for supper—these things were lost to her, lost to Charles now too. Forever.

Her feet were leaden as she silently crept up the curving staircase. It would be easy enough to hide should a wandering student in search of a midnight snack pass by.

Raven, as much as she wanted to see the man whom she had once considered her brother, as much as she needed to complete her mission, was drawn first to her old room. Right beside Charles’s near the end of the hall, connected with a panel that only they and servants no longer here (perhaps no longer living) knew about.

She placed her hand on the knob. The brass was far smoother than she thought it would be, and she wondered what student (or teacher, maybe) had ended up here. The doorknob wouldn’t budge. Locked. She huffed out a quiet breath and pulled a pin from her hair, one of the few things she’d bothered to bring with her on this little trip. She knew she was wasting precious time, but something in her burned with the need to know.

Picking the lock was as simple as breathing. She had done it so many times growing up, and the lock was the same. Her fingers remembered just as easily as her mind. She pushed the door open, just a crack, for the hinges had always been a bit on the squeaky side (Charles had promised to fix that for her after Cuba), and peered inside. It was empty, devoid of human life, and yet everything was exactly as she had left it, right down to the rumpled pile of clothes in the basket she’d always kept by the door and the half open book she’d stared at but couldn’t quite muster up the focus to read before the flight out to Florida to meet Hank. Hank in his new, beautiful blue coat, with his new yellow eyes wary and dangerous as a cornered cat. Everything was the same, save for the fine layer of dust that had settled in the high recesses of what had once been her bookshelf, as though whoever had bothered to clean in here couldn’t reach the top shelves. A sharp twist of guilt burned in her gut until she forced it down. So what if Charles had kept her room for her? He’d lied. He hadn’t kept his promise, and that was what really mattered most.

She backed out of her room and pulled the door shut with a soft click. It wouldn’t do to dwell on memories, on things she couldn’t change. The mission was all that mattered right now. She had to find Charles and get the answers she sought before sunrise.

If she had been uncertain about Charles staying in his old room before, all her doubts vanished after seeing what he’d done (well, more what he _hadn’t_ done) to her old quarters. She slunk over to his door, fully expecting to pick the lock here too, when a familiar voice filled her head and froze her heart in her chest.

_No need, Raven. It’s open._

Charles. Raven let out the breath she’d been holding and rose from her crouch, running a hand over hair that had not once fallen out of place. The gesture was comforting all the same, a callback to a time when she spent most of her time behind a mask of soft pink skin and long blonde hair.

She tested the door, and it was indeed open. The feel of the room was different than when she’d last been here, more empty than she remembered. She unconsciously traced her fingers over her temple as she looked about the room for Charles—there, by the window, in that stupid, ugly armchair he apparently had decided to keep. His wheelchair was parked beside the armrest, ready and waiting should he need to move from that spot.

“I’m not in your head, Raven.” So strange, to hear that name coming from him after so long. He looked over his shoulder at her, his pale face illuminated from the soft glow of the moon spilling in from the overlarge window. “I made a promise to you once.”

Anger rose up in her belly at that. Charles and his empty promises. Of course. “Promises were made to be broken, Charles. Or was that only with me?” A special case. Meant to be coddled and locked away with doors and masks and promises, promises, promises. Like a broken record. A promise from Charles was as empty as the chair by his side.

“I suppose you would think that, wouldn’t you?” he said as he turned back to face the window. His words were soft, and the posh English accent that had been weathered over the years of living here in New York was stronger than it probably should have been. Raven stepped closer and breathed in the sharp scent of bourbon. Of course Charles was drunk. Old habits died hard.

“It keeps me calm at night, dear. Nothing more. It will likely become a problem later—might even be a problem now, I suppose—but for the time-being it’s all I have to help me sleep. The children’s minds can get awfully busy at night.”

Picking up her thoughts again. “I thought you said you weren’t reading my mind.”

“Promises were made to be broken.” Her own words echoed back at her with a bitterness she wasn’t expecting. She walked forward until she was standing almost in front of him. His gaze remained fixed on the garden outside, where frost was just beginning to creep over the colorful leaves of the trees and pull them down to the ground.

“I thought you above holding petty grudges, Charles. After all, you did forgive Magneto for,” she gestured at him, at the omnipresent chair by his side, “that.”

“Forgiving and forgetting are two entirely different things. Besides,” he said with a sardonic smile, “we were siblings once. I thought siblings were supposed to pick trivial little fights with one another on occasion. Guess I miscalculated. It’s so easy to do with you.”

Trivial. “So this is all a joke to you. Me wanting privacy was a joke. I suppose wanting to be nothing more than myself meant nothing to you, too.”

Charles rolled his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. “Oh, my dear. I was only protecting you.”

“By making me into something I’m not? Something I could _never_ be? You’re not the one who had to hide all the time, Charles.” She spat out his name like a curse, her skin flickering with rage. “You’re not a _freak._ You just want to play hero to those of us that are, so I guess you’ll never understand.”

To her surprise, he laughed. It wasn’t joyful in the slightest, and it made a chill run up her spine. “Hero, huh?” He looked at her then, and the sheer power behind that blue gaze made her draw back a step. “Well then, darling, I guess you’re very lucky I’m not the sort of hero who feels the need to wear a mask.”

Raven was frozen to the spot, unable to move a muscle. She could hardly breathe.

“Because If I did, I’m sure one of my masks would be you.”

Her skin shifted, painfully and unnaturally, the movements not her own. Charles. He was the one doing this. She walked over to the full-length mirror and watched the man she’d once called brother stare back at her from the glass.

_You see how easy it is? And the best part about using you is that you have a countless number of faces. A million masks all at my disposal if I wanted them. But I don’t. I have no need of them. Now go, Raven. The others won’t be nearly so welcoming as I._

The sun was creeping up over the horizon, painting the sky with color. Her time was up. She had to get out of here. Her limbs tingled as she regained control of them and her skin melted away to blue. Blue, blue, blue. She hugged her arms around her middle and stumbled toward the door, her mission forgotten.

_Give my regards to Erik._


End file.
